Jul 18, 2018

"Rick and Morty": More Homophobic than"Family Guy"?

I watched part of the first episode of the Cartoon Network's Rick and Morty (2013-) a couple of years ago, and turned it off, bored.  But people kept telling me how great it was, so I bought the entire Season 2 and binge watched.

Rick Sanchez is a foul-mouthed, misanthropic, drunken mad scientist who drags his squeamish grandson Morty (both voiced by series co-creator Justin Roiland) on complex, blood-and-puke filled adventures in the multiverse.

Morty is a whiny "that's not a good idea" superego.  Also hetero-horny.  He has a crush on The Girl of His Dreams back at school, and in most parts of the multiverse, he finds a cute alien babe and "lets his penis do the talking."

Sometimes other relatives (forceful daughter Beth, her sitcom-inept husband Jerry, self-involved teenage granddaughter Summer) tag along.

Example: when his spaceship battery goes dead, Rick reveals that he has created an entire microverse inside the battery and populated it with beings who generate the electricity by stomping on foot-generators.

  But a scientist in the microverse has created his own mini-microverse, and populated it with beings who generate the electricty for his world, so they no longer feel the need to run Rick's generators.  And in the mini-microverse, another scientist....sort of like Inception, with more blood and puke.






Example: alien parasites have infested the house, pretending to be family members and friends, and inducing complete sets of memories, so you think you've known them forever, remember all the good times, their help over the years. So how can they distinguish real people from the parasites?

 They know that there are five people in the house.  Well, six, including Sleepy Gary, who is actually married to Beth.  Ok, seven: Frankenstein has been a close friend for years.  Ok, eight, including the Raptor.  Ten...ten people have always lived in the house.  No, twelve...

I have to admit, the plotlines are interesting, with effusively creative universe inside of universe.  The blood and puke, not so much.

And Rick's habit of ending every sentence with "Morty" gets annoying.

"We got to get out of here, Morty.  Hand me that cosmic defrazzler, Morty.  This should do the trick, Morty.  But there's no telling what universe we'll end up in, Morty.  We'll just have to wait and see, Morty."

Then there's the homophobia.

Fans point to the episode "Auto Erotic Assimilation" as evidence that Rick Sanchez is pansexual.  Not so: Rick is a grungy, sleasy, grab-their-tits, two-dollar hooker hetero horndog.  In that episode, he has sex with a being  named Unity, who has taken over the bodies of everyone on a planet.

Unity talks to him through male and female beings, but when they have sex, he specifies that he wants a stadium filled with attractive women, and the bleachers filled with men to be amazed at his sexual proficiency.  That's heterosexual to the nth degree.

Rick doesn't even like gay people.  His favorite slur is "cocksucker!"  It's not just a denigration of oral sex; although men and women both can engage in that activity, Rick only uses it to demean men, by implying that they are gay.  For instance, in "The Wedding Squanchers," he denigrates his son-in-law:  "My name is Jerry, and I love to suck big hairy boners and lick disgusting testicle sacks."

I happened to watch the episode about an hour after doing just that.

Obviously the show expects us to find gay sex disgusting.

"Gay" is also used as an all-purpose put-down: "That's gay."

According to the fan wiki, there have been several actual LGBT characters on the show.  Let's take a look at them:

1.The alien parasite pretending to be Sleepy Gary has introduced memories of a secret gay romance with Jerry.  They keep it closeted.

2. Father Bob, the priest at the town church, has gay desires that he must hide, because, of course, God hates gays. When a ray makes everyone's "toxicity"(negative traits) emerge, Father Bob declares "There is no God" and starts having sex with a guy.  It doesn't get more clear than this: being gay is a negative trait.

3. An alternate universe version of Summer is a lesbian, who is dating the alternate universe version of her nemesis, Christina LaCroix.  She is attacked by other alternate versions of herself.  Can't have those lesbians around!

4. An alien tv commercial tells us about Trunk People, men who have elephant trunks on their faces, which allows them to have sex with both men and women.

Silly me -- I thought there were people right here on Earth who had sex with men and women both.  Apparently the writers believe that bisexuality is physically impossible.

Or did they mean sex with men and women at the same time is physically impossible?

News flash: you have a penis or a vagina, a mouth, a butt, and two hands.  That's five partners, of whatever gender configuration you want.  Try a cisgender man, a cisgender woman, a transman, a transwoman, and someone who is intersexed.

5. Bisexual actress Kristen Stewart has a cameo, having sex with an alternate universe Jerry.  See -- she's actually straight.

6. The partially mechanical humanoid Revolio Clockberg Jr. (aka Gearface) tries to pick up college girls, but he also reads a magazine called Queer Gear, which appears to show a mechanical humanoid having sex with a machine.  It's in the background of a scene; you have to freeze-frame and blow it up to see it.

7. King Jellybean, a giant anthropomorphic jellybean, tries to molest 14-year old Morty in the bathroom: "Stop being such a fucking tease, you sweet little vaginal potato!"  Morty beats him to death.

Yep, all gay men are sexual predators and pedophiles.  Teenage boys better be careful in public restrooms!

Even Family Guy never went that far.

I won't be watching any more episodes.

5 comments:

  1. It can be outrageous, but, to be fair, you have to have a very high IQ something something. (And that copypasta is also heterosexist. Only a girl with an IQ within 10 points of the speaker, "preferably lower", can see his Rick and Morty tattoo I'm some unknown body part.)

    I always say "Why does the fandom think Rick's a role model?" By the way, he's also an antisemite as of "The Vindicators". Maybe if they didn't try to live like Rick, the guy who has memories of hooking his grandson up to a car battery (and we know it's another Morty because Rick referenced it, and Morty had no idea what Rick was talking about), they wouldn't be rioting over ketchup and soy sauce. I mean, I watch Steven Universe, that fandom is also quite toxic (just ask zammi070), and Steven Universe fans don't riot over McDonald's food.

    FWIW, there is a running gag of pedophiles of both sexes trying to molest Morty? The entire planet does in "Rick Potion No. 9", after all.

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  2. Actually, now that I think about it, King Jellybean could be an Adventure Time reference. Princess Bubblegum isn't in a relationship with Finn, but in those first couple seasons, the fandom thought so. And she acts so, well, regal, while he acts like a young boy. And the show was deconstructing fantasy tropes even then.

    But how do you parody a fantasy series that takes place in a post-atomic wasteland? Can't go more grimdark, so Rick and Morty took the low road.

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  3. Ok, I fixed the "Father Bob" reference. When a toxicity ray causes everyone's negative traits to emerge, he begins having sex with a guy. Clearly the writers consider being gay a shameful "toxic" trait.

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  4. Is the Jellybean supposed to be a metaphor for Ronald Reagan or something?

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    Replies
    1. I had forgotten that Reagan was known for jellybeans -- it's been a long time. And the writers are millenials. I can't imagine that they had him in mind.

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